The Helios Chronicles
by Malcolm Reynolds
Summary: The tales of a vampire hunter, from his first kill under tragic circumstances to his present day early adult life. Work in progress. PLEASE READ AND REVIEW! Feedback always appreciated.
1. Chapter 1

**The Helios Chronicles**

**Story 1: It Begins With an End**

December 17th, 2057.

That was the night that my peaceful, suburban life was forever taken from me by the forces of darkness, and the night that the undead gained their most dangerous enemy.

Six years later, I still remember every detail of it…

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I was 16 when it happened. My family – dad, mom, big bro Jack and my big sister Rachel – all lived in a nice place in Renton in the Seattle Metroplex. You know, typical middle-class home – not a mansion, but comfortable. Dad had a nice cushy job with a AA subsidiary of Fuchi, enough to keep us all fed and for some decent presents to be waiting under the tree around Christmas time.

Mom worked in the Thaumaturgy department at the local community college; she was a shaman following Dog's path. A kid couldn't ask for a more devoted protector than ma; she had better than average talent with just about any sort of protection magic you could think of, and she sure as hell bared her fangs on the rare occasions when we were in danger. My friends all gave her the nickname "The Bitch" 'cause of her path; they said it out of earshot for the longest time, but the first time they let it slip out around her, she busted out laughing.

Yeah, mom was the best…

Bro and sis always tried to play protector 'cause I was the youngest. I hated them for the longest time for it, but looking back, they probably saved me from more than a few bad decisions. I was glad when they went off to college; I felt like I finally had a chance to be alone and on my own.

Who knew they would be the ones needing protection…

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The night it happened, I was over at my friend's next door, playing the ol' game system. The series of eight-player deathmatches went on for hours, and before we knew it we had completely lost track of time. When we finally checked our watches, it was 3 a.m. I decided to run home in time to avoid the lecture I knew I was going to get from my siblings about staying out so late. I could have sworn that the only reason they'd come home from college wasn't for Christmas break, but to irritate the hell out of me.

I decided to avoid the inevitable lecture by taking the back door into my house. The main staircase wasn't far from that entrance, and I figured with any luck, I'd be able to sneak in ninja-style and creep up to my room without the damned creaking floors waking anyone up or alerting my probably awake sister. She always was the night owl; funny how she always lectured me the most about being up late…

Anyways, I snuck in through the screen door in the back since those things don't creak, and managed to get in without making too much of a racket. A regular ninja job. Well, at least I liked to think so.

I was so intent on sneaking over to the staircase just 20 feet away that it didn't register that the entire house was dark. Once my brain started processing though, it hit me as to just how strange it was. My sister never went to bed until 4 a.m. typically, and yet there wasn't even the slightest spillage of light from another room. Not even anything coming down the staircase to the upper level, where the bedrooms were. Given that this was the week before Christmas, I couldn't believe that Rachel would go to bed early.

The more I thought about this, the more nervous I was getting, so I went over to the lamp and hit the lights…

And was greeted with the TV room. Nothing unusual. The TV was off, the couch was empty except for the blanket laying on it, and the two tables had the usual family pictures on it, completely undisturbed.

Oh well, I thought. This was strange, but I wasn't about to question my good fortune at having been spared another sisterly lecture.

I was about to switch the lights back off when I heard a creaking sound from the upstairs floorboards.

For some reason that I couldn't figure out, this made me nervous. Maybe it was just the strangeness of things that had set me on edge, but that creaking gave me an eerie feeling in my gut. I forgot about the lights and dashed over to the foot of the staircase, peeking up to see if I could see anything, finding only pitch blackness.

I heard the creaking again, sounding like it was headed towards the room at the end of the upstairs hallway. My heart pumping a mile a minute, I waited until the sound was past my position, then slowly walked up the staircase, my back to the wall, just like you see the spies do in those cheesy movies. Peeking around the corner at the source of the sound, I saw an unfamiliar profile walk into my parents' room.

At this point, I was scared shitless. All my years of sneaking to my bedroom in the night in our house had taught me to read the shadowy profiles of my family to avoid the worst lecturers, and that guy was definitely not one of my family! There was a burglar in our house, or maybe someone worse!

Trying to control my hard breathing, I snuck around and walked up the stairs as fast as I could, not caring about the damn wall-hug anymore, and snuck up next to the now-closed door to my parents room, trying to listen for anything.

For some reason, even though nearly every instinct in my body was screaming at me to run away and call Lone Star, something inside me told me to go in and see what the hell was going on. I ended up following that instinct after a couple minutes of internal deliberating, slowly moving my shaking hand towards the doorknob and creeping it open, inch by inch so as not to make a noise.

When I opened the door completely and took a look inside, I saw something that made my body freeze.

I saw my parents, lying on the bed, covered in blood. Both had their eyes open in far-away stares, mouths hanging open in now-silent screams.

After my mind took a minute to process what was before me, I burst into tears and ran over to the two, desperately trying to revive them using everything I knew from school – CPR, chest-pounding, _anything_. I knew it was useless, that they were already dead, but dammit…there had to be _something_ I could do!

I was pounding my father's chest as hard as I could when I noticed them. Two holes, right in the neck area. The vein, or the artery, or whatever blood-carrying body part was in that area had obviously been punctured, since there were no other wounds on either of them.

It didn't hit me for a few seconds, but when it did, it came like a sledgehammer.

_Vampire._

I'd heard of these creatures before, and everyone accepted that they existed since they were in Patterson's field guide and all those sources, but damn…it's not something you think will ever happen to you or someone close to you!

Suddenly, I remembered my siblings. They weren't safe either, if this psycho was still in the house!

Forgetting silence completely, I dashed down the hallway and busted open the doors to both their rooms.

It was already too late for them. Same lifeless stares, same blood-soaked beds, same two holes in the same spots in the necks.

I couldn't think of anything to do except fall to the ground and start weeping. My entire family had just been killed by some psychopath, my life as I knew it was over…everything was collapsing around me in the span of a few short minutes. I just wanted to die at that moment, to end the suffering I was going through.

"Ah, the last one."

Startled, I looked up from where I was crying to see the owner of the growling voice who had just said the sentence.

He was just over two meters tall (slightly taller than me), and he was wearing one of those leather biker jackets and jeans. He was flashing a set of blood-stained teeth at me, sneering, and I then knew that he was the psychopath that had killed everyone.

The minute I saw him, I changed my mind about dying. I wasn't going to end up another blood-drained corpse. I stood up, tears still staining my face, and faced him.

"You," I said accusingly, my voice shaking. "You're the murderer."

"Gee, what a sharp mind," he said mockingly, rolling his eyes like this was some damn friendly conversation.

His attitude sent me seething, and the shakiness in my voice immediately vanished as I spat verbal fire at him.

"You psycho son of a bitch, WHY!"

He simply wiped the blood from his lips and answered, "Because I was hungry. Nothing personal, ya know; just food. Besides, I make it a point to have _some_ fun every night."

At that point, I just lost it. I was ready to suicide-charge this guy. There was no way out since he was blocking the door, so I figured that if I was going to die here, I'd at least go down fighting.

I lunged at the bloodsucker and slugged him with all my might, sending his head jerking in such a way that it hit the door frame and fell to the ground.

"You may have killed my family, but you're not getting me!" I yelled at him as I ran out the door and headed downstairs.

_Gotta get outta here_, I thought as I ran down the staircase. _Gotta call Lone Star and tell them what happened; they can get this guy._

Even as I processed those thoughts, however, something inside me welled up. It's…hard to describe. It felt like I suddenly had a fire roaring in the pit of my stomach, and it consuming my entire body, giving me strength as it spread.

At that moment, I knew that I was going to stand and fight this guy. That I _could_ stand and fight. And that I could win.

Having arrived at the front door by this time, I course-corrected and ran for the kitchen, rummaging through the drawers and looking for the sharpest and largest knife I could find. I found the butcher knife that the family used for the gigantic hams we bought for Christmas and decided that would do. I then steeled myself in the middle of the kitchen, waiting for the monster to follow me down.

He walked into the kitchen shortly thereafter, shambling in like some cocky punk. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was expecting another course to his meal, and he laughed when he saw the knife in my hand.

"Ah, the warrior awaits!" he said, laughing his ass off. He obviously thought this was the most hilarious thing in the world.

"You will pay for what you have done, monster," I growled, my voice firm and angry. "And I will see to it that you suffer!"

"You! HA! That's rich!" he replied, tossing his head back and extending his fangs. "Now sit back and relax; it'll all be over soon…"

That was when the dam burst.

I flew into action with a speed that surprised even me, shouting an anguished war cry and burying the knife deep into the vampire's shoulder. Blood spurted from the wound, and the foul being howled, more in surprise than in pain I think. I twisted the knife and yanked it out, opening the wound even wider and triggering another howl.

Wasting no time, I hopped backwards, out of the vampire's attack range, holding the knife in front of me. The creature of the night put one hand to the wound and held it there, looking at me with raw hatred in his eyes. Clearly, he didn't like his meals biting back.

"That was foolish, cattle!" he shouted. "Now I'll see to it that _you_ suffer!"

"That's my line," I growled, as I leaped at him again. I sliced at him again, tagging him in the face and drawing more blood. He was ready this time, though, and tried to grab my arm, but I twisted away and ended up behind him, plunging the knife into his back and following the same twist-and-pull motion from before as I kicked him square in the small of the back. The vampire went sprawling against the kitchen sink.

It was only then I realized that I had just out-reflexed a vampire and that I had covered a distance of more than five meters with my single leap towards him.

I didn't have time to dwell on that, though; the vampire was already getting up and getting that familiar pissed-off look on his face. I didn't wait this time; I stepped towards him again and plunged the knife into his throat, triggering a gurgling scream from the murderer.

I stared the bastard in the face and grinned as I pushed the knife in as deeply as I could, causing the blade to exit through the back of his neck.

"Who's the hunter now, _punk_!" I said as I hurled the bloodsucker to the floor, knife still lodged in his throat.

I straddled his chest and removed the knife with the same twist and pull, triggering a yelp. I plunged the knife into his chest without delay, pinning him to the ground and making sure I hit as close to the heart as I could.

"How's it feel to be on the other end, huh!" I yelled. "How's it feel to realize you're nothing but a bullying _bitch_ that preys on the weak! How's it feel to know you're not that much of a big-shot after all!"

He strained to speak through the blood bubbling up in his mouth and from the wound in his throat.

"Please…" he gasped. "…have…mercy…"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Mercy? This fuckhead had just murdered my whole family, tried to kill me, laughed about it, and he wanted _mercy_!

"MERCY!" I yelled so loudly I thought that house would shake. "_YOU DON'T DESERVE MERCY, YOU ABOMINATION!_"

I pulled the knife out of his heart and stared at the predator that I now had at my mercy. I contemplated all the ways I could kill him, make him suffer before giving him a better death than he deserved.

I mutilated him. Carefully, with the precision of a surgeon and the coldness of a scalpel. Listened as he continued screaming for mercy. I mutilated him four ways, one for each of my family members. The fangs I forcibly removed were for my sister. The eyes I put out were for my brother. The tongue I cut out was for my father, and the heart I excised to ensure his death was for my mother. Only when the last part was removed did he stop screaming and finally die. When it was finished, I hacked his head off as an added fail-safe to end any doubt as to whether he'd be back.

I didn't realize until much later that what I did to that vampire could have led down a very bad road in life, down the Twisted Way. I didn't even know I had Awakened as an adept; I just knew that I could move faster and jump farther than normal men. I didn't know what an Awakening felt like. Even if I had known at the time, it probably wouldn't have stopped me; I was too incensed and traumatized to think clearly, to realize the brutality with which I had mutilated the murderer of my family.

I suppose it doesn't matter now. I'm not a Twisted Way adept; let me make that much clear. I've never sprouted freakish deformities in conjunction with my powers, nor do I prey on humans. I draw my power from the protectiveness I feel for those who cannot fight for themselves and from my drive to see the day when no one has to suffer as my family did. Of course there's anger mixed in there, but it aids me; it does not consume me. I should also point out that I haven't mutilated another undead since that night, though the temptation has certainly been there.

I'm drifting again. Anyways, long story short: My sympathy for humanity is what makes me different from a Twisted Way adept. A Twisted One would be sociopathically cold towards humanity as a whole, a "carpet bomber" if you will. I'm more of a "surgical strike" adept, reserving my anger for the predators that stalk our midst but feeling compassion and sympathy for normal metahumanity. And that's where I'm different.

Anyways…back to the past. After I killed the vampire, I realized that unless I did something about my family's bodies, they'd rise again as new vampires. I knew what I had to do, as much as it hurt to admit it to myself. I went outside and broke off some thick branches from the trees outside, fashioning them into crude stakes using the butcher knife. When I was done, I went back up and staked all four of my family members through the hearts. They hadn't risen as the undead yet, but I couldn't take the chance. I couldn't let them become monsters like him. I wept as I did it. I said my goodbyes to each of them in turn, sending them to their final rest, beyond the reach of the vampire's accursed disease.

After that, I gathered up a bag, stuffed some clothes into it, and ran. I couldn't think of anything else to do; I had just killed a man, and Lone Star would be on my ass for sure, even with the fact that the bastard was a quadruple murderer.

So I ran. I didn't know where I was going; all I could do was run and hope that I was headed towards the light, wherever I was going…


	2. Chapter 2

**Story 2: Digging Out of the Grave**

"Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes."

That's a life maxim that was drilled into my head by my parents for years.

Despite our cushy corporate lifestyle, my family was pretty nice people. Whereas most people that work for the corps tend to be bastards to the disadvantaged, my parents helped host donation drives to soup kitchens on the outskirts of Redmond (where they wouldn't get shot up by several hundred gangs) and in general treated them as metahuman beings like everyone else.

I remember having friends whose parents stared down their noses at those people. My mom hated those people. She said that they thought all the poor were lazy, that they were on the streets because they didn't get off their asses and try to make a living.

Mom would always say that every street person ended up where they were for different reasons. Some of them had their house burned down and couldn't afford another place to live. Some lost their jobs and had trouble finding another one. Some had to spend their rent money on the medicine just to stay alive 'cause they were getting gouged by insanely high drug prices.

I somehow doubt mom would have thought of the possibility that some poor guy just had his family sucked dry by a vampire and had nowhere else to go.

That's what I was after the attack on my family.

Just another reason why the homeless exist.

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I think I ran for about three hours straight after I killed that vampire. I didn't know where I was going. I'm surprised I didn't end up running right over the Salish-Shidhe border.

Actually, that might have been preferable. I mean, at least the Salish Council has pretty forests, nice grasslands and all that other nature stuff that all us sprawl-dwellers hardly ever get to see.

Instead, I ended up in the worst possible place: the Redmond Barrens.

Welcome to Redmond. Abandon hope, all ye who enter or are born here.

It took me about 30 seconds to realize where I had ended up – the Rusted Stilettos gang sign spray-painted on a warehouse wall was as good a signpost as any – before I started panicking. I was completely lost and didn't even know which direction to turn to get to the nearest district. And in Redmond, stopping to ask for directions is about as intelligent as walking up to a troll ganger and saying, "Kill me now!"

As I was scanning the area, frantically looking around me for the slightest movement and ready to jump on anyone who so much as walked towards me wrong, my eyes caught sight of a pamphlet lying on the street not a foot away from me. It was decorated with a crucifix, and it read "St. Michael's Shelter."

Relieved, I picked the snow-covered pamphlet up and checked for the address. There was map on the back of it, and judging by the street names on it, I was only a couple blocks away.

Two blocks might not sound like much, but if you've never been in Redmond, you have no idea how long a walk that can seem like. Feeling like you're behind enemy lines, shooting quick glances at everyone you pass; just long enough to gauge their threat potential, but not long enough that they may take offense if you stare.

Worst hike I've ever taken.

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After what felt like an hour of walking – though my watch indicated only 10 minutes had passed – I arrived on the front stoop of St. Michael's.

It wasn't much to look at from the outside. The brick walls were shot up, just like every other building in that hellhole district of Seattle. The front lawn of the place was overgrown with weeds, and the bell tower was so far gone even Quasimodo would have raised objections to living there.

At that moment though, the decrepit cathedral meant a roof and food, and that was all I was thinking of as I walked in.

The place wasn't too bad inside, really. Somehow, despite its dilapidated conditions outside, the church had everything needed for comfortable living. The heat was turned up enough that I could take my coat off without even feeling a draft, and a bunch of tables around the church's walls held a buffet line of cheap soy-based food. Several homeless were using the pews as beds. Hell, they even had air fresheners set up around the place.

If it weren't for the sorry shape of everyone there except the volunteer workers, it might have been mistaken for home.

After treating myself to a warm meal, I set my stuff down on a pew and sat, thinking about what the hell I was going to do next. I had nowhere to go, no family to turn to in Seattle to get out of the hole I'd just been thrown down. The only thing keeping me awake at that moment was the anger coursing through my veins about the hand fate had dealt me.

Just then, someone made the mistake of arousing that anger.

"Hey fresh meat, outta my spot!"

I looked up to see a scraggly-bearded white guy staring at me angrily.

"I don't see a placeholder with your name on it," I growled, not in the mood for this shit.

All of a sudden, I was lifted from my seat by my collar and held an inch away from the angry vagabond's face. I could smell every whiff of his rank odor as he shouted at me.

"You don't just get to come in here and sit where you want!" he yelled. "Guys like me, who've been here for years, we get our spots! So fuck off, or I'll…"

_POW_

The vagrant let out a high-pitched scream as my knee connected with his gonads. He also released me from his grip, stumbling backwards with his hand to his crotch and his knees to the floor. I finished the fight with a punt to the bastard's face, putting him flat on his back.

"Look you fucking prick, I'm not in the mood to get into a territorial pissing match, but if you insist on it again, I'll be more than happy to accommodate you!" I shouted, standing over the guy. "Let me warn you though, the next punt might break your fucking spine instead of just your nose!"

I thought about threatening the guy with the knowledge that I'd just killed a vampire, so I could kill him even more easily if I was pissed off enough, but decided against it. Lone Star usually didn't bother with the Redmond Barrens at all, but it still wasn't exactly something I wanted to sing from the mountaintops.

It wasn't until then that I noticed that everyone in the church was staring at us. Clearly, they weren't expecting a street fight here.

I returned to my seat as quickly as I could, and everyone in the church went back to their business. Except one guy. He was standing by the altar at the front of the church, staring at me weirdly.

I did my best to ignore the guy, but he just kept fixating on me with this weird stare. I got up to get my meal and sat back down, and his eyes followed me the whole way.

This went on for an hour before I decided I'd had enough.

Not wanting the entire church to take notice of the confrontation that was coming, I got up and strode towards the altar, standing in front of the guy. He looked like most of the other clientele in this place; scraggily beard, unwashed hair, dirt-encrusted clothes. He was an old guy too; past age 50, certainly.

Whoever this guy was, he was ticking me off. There was still some residual adrenaline coursing through me after the fight with that other bum, and my attitude still hadn't cooled off.

"What the hell's your problem, man?" I whispered.

The old guy just chuckled and took a step away, turning his back to me.

"You're one of them, aren't you?" he inquired.

"One of who?" I asked back.

"The Talented. Those with The Gift. Magically Active, if you prefer such dry scientist-speak. They go by many names in this world."

Me? Magically active? No, it couldn't be. I'd taken all those magical potency tests earlier in my life, and they never identified even a trace of magical power. Having one parent be a magic user, or even two of them, was no guarantee of having the Magus Factor, and I'd been living proof of that.

"That's impossible," I said. "My mom is…_was_ a shaman, but…the tests never showed anything."

I thought for a minute.

"Wait a minute…how can you even accuse me of being a magic user? How would you know either way?"

The old man turned to me and tapped his face near his eye socket.

"The Sight," he said. "Most magic users have it. Astral perception, as it's called by technical-minded mage types. In any case, it reveals a subject's true nature. And your aura betrays your power, my friend. And as for the tests…no science is ever foolproof. In fact, some say…"

"WaitwaitwaitWAIT!" I said, cutting him off in mid-ramble. "You were SPYING on me! I'm not much for religion, but I thought churches were supposed to be SACRED! What's so sacred about spying on someone's aura without them knowing it!"

"My apologies; I did not mean to offend," the old man said, seeming genuinely sorry.

"Alright, so I'm a magic user; what's it to you?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing. Just…thought you might want to know," he said.

I turned away from the old guy, a bit annoyed that he'd disturbed me for that. Taking my seat again, I started thinking. Thinking about what I was going to do now, where I could possibly go from here.

It was then that I was glad I had that conversation with the goofy old man.

It all made sense. That feeling telling me to stand and fight, telling me that I could win against the bloodsucker. How I had managed to avoid the vampire's attacks. Managing to leap farther than I ever had before. How I had managed to survive the whole encounter at all.

There was no other way to explain it. That old man was right. I had Awakened.

I caught myself just then. I was trusting an old kook to tell me I had somehow Awakened after every test I'd taken years ago told me it was impossible? Even with all those other factors, there had to be another explanation. Adrenaline rush, maybe.

For some reason, in spite of everything that had happened to me in the past 12 hours, I felt the immediate need to resolve this question. I just _had_ to know.

Taking my bag, I went over to one of the volunteers and asked if they knew where any magic-users could be found. Yeah, I know, it's not exactly the telecom book, but I didn't have too many options.

Turns out, she did in fact know where I could find one. She said he was a street doc only one block from the church, quite adept at healing magic. She said that the volunteers often took critically injured transients there to help them get back on their feet.

Satisfied, I got out of there and ran as fast as I could to the doc's upstairs office one block away. Not even noticing the other patients in the "waiting room" the guy had set up, I crashed into the doc's examination room, closing the door behind me and gasping for breath.

The street doc was an ork, bigger than me by a good half a meter and really tough looking. Which made it all the more surprising when he spoke.

"Can I help you?" he said, his soft voice tinged with concern.

"You're Dr. Hoskins, right?" I asked.

"Yes, that's me. If you want an examination, all you have to do is wait for a few minutes and I'll…"

"I need some help, now," I interrupted. "I need to know…I need…"

"Hey hey there, calm down," he said, getting up and helping me to a chair.

Sitting down, I took a few deep breaths before continuing.

"I need to know…if I'm magically active," I said. "I heard you're a mage and that magicians can see auras and stuff and I need to know…"

The ork got up and started walking around.

"Yes, I'm a magic-user," he said. "I'm not a mage, though; I'm a follower of Bear."

A shaman. I slapped my forehead when I realized my mistake.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up," he said. "It happens. Anyways…yes, I use magic and I can see into the astral.

"And if you're looking to determine whether or not you're magically active, then yes, I can help you."

Sitting down in a chair across from me, Dr. Hoskins took out a blank medical chart and starting jotting things down.

"I'll need to ask you a few questions though, just to get some history."

So I told him. Not about the vampire killing, but about the other stuff – the five-meter jump, the increased reflexes and the kook that told me about my aura. I didn't explain the circumstances behind my discoveries, nor did he ask. I got the feeling that was part of what kept him in business.

When he was finished asking questions, he put the chart away.

"Well, judging by what you've told me, you quite possibly could be a magician. I won't know for sure until I've run a few tests. Since you told me your mother was a shaman, I'm guessing you've had some sort of magic performed on you before."

I nodded. Mom always relied on her diagnosis spells whenever one of us got sick. Gave her some minor migraines, but it was cheaper than seeing a doctor every time we had a fever.

"Alright then. Well, just give me a few minutes and we'll know."

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After several minutes of him casting one spell and several more minutes of him staring at me – reading my aura, he was kind enough to explain to me – the verdict was in.

"Well, I don't know what kook you talked to over at the church, but he was right. You are indeed magically active. And you've become so _very_ recently, from what I see."

So it was true. I had Awakened.

"So what am I?" I asked. "How come I don't have this astral sight thing?"

"Well, that's because you're not what the gangers that come around here call a 'spell-slinger,'" he said. "You're an adept. They don't usually have the astral sight immediately after they Awaken."

"So that huge jump I made…?"

Dr. Hoskins nodded. "Welcome to the world of magic."

"But what about all those tests I've taken?" I asked. "How could they have missed this?"

The big ork leaned back in his chair.

"Well, those tests aren't always entirely accurate," he said. "Also, severe traumas have been known to cause spontaneous Awakenings years after the time in someone's life when it would normally happen. It's not common, but it's certainly not unheard of."

Severe trauma. I guess seeing your entire family killed by a vampire qualifies.

"I know how scary this is for you. I felt the same way when my abilities surfaced. I wish I could provide psychological healing as well as physical, but unfortunately I'm no psychiatrist."

"So what did you do?" I asked. "When you Awakened, I mean?"

Hoskins sighed.

"I wish any advice I could give would help," he said. "Unfortunately, everyone deals with this in their own way, and following another's advice often does more harm than good."

"C'mon, throw me a line here, please," I begged, desperate for something to help me understand.

"Well…I guess the best thing I could tell you to do would be not to panic. Too often, panic leads to uncontrolled releases of power that can prove dangerous to you and everyone else around. Don't be scared of exploring your abilities, though; embrace them. Only by understanding them can you use them positively."

I nodded in agreement. He was making sense.

"I'm sorry, but there's many others who need my care."

"Of course," I replied, getting up. "Thank you…very much."

The ork doctor smiled, his tusks making the smile seem a bit strange, but no less welcome.

"Glad I could help," he replied.

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I stayed in the shelter for a month after that. It wasn't like I had anywhere else to go, and it meant free food and a warm place to sleep, so I figured what the hell.

I spent most of that month training myself to handle my new powers, figuring out what I could do and how far I could push myself. I didn't know exactly how magic was supposed to work – whether I could do whatever I wanted, whether the powers were bestowed on me somehow, or what – but I figured the sooner I got a handle on things, the sooner I could gain control of them.

I soon discovered that my footsteps no longer made a sound – a discovery made by spooking quite a few people by walking up behind them and saying hi. Nearly got punched by some guy in one of those incidents. I found out later that he was an ex-ganger with some second-hand wired reflexes. No hard feelings; I've heard those things make you twitchy.

Judging by my encounter with the vampire, I already knew that I could react faster than normal and jump further. Something else I found out was that my senses were improved. I could see in the dark (found that out after a Seattle thunderstorm took out the power in the shelter for a night) and that I could see heat signatures (ditto). I could hear better than I normally could, and I also found my ears…closing off, I guess it he best way to put it, to protect my hearing when I heard a really loud noise (damn that insane guy and his "valuable" joke air horn).

All in all, I was impressed with what I could do, especially considering I wasn't all that athletic. Luck of the draw, I guessed at the time.

Now I think it was fate.

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After about a month of staying in the shelter, I still wasn't sure what to do to get back to the world. Job offers weren't exactly plentiful, not even menial work like burger flipping at McHugh's.

I was thinking about my options one night in the shelter when I was interrupted.

"Hey," I heard someone say.

Startled out of my thoughts, I looked up and saw one of the regulars at the shelter. He was an ork, with black hair that was starting to gray and tattered clothes.

"Yeah?" I asked, prepared for another fight. But that wasn't what he was after at all.

"I – _we _– need your help," he said, sitting down next to me, a sense of urgency in his voice.

"Whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute," I said, not sure what this was about. "Who's 'we,' what do you need help with, and why me?"

"I'm sorry, but time is short," he said. "There is a threat that must be dealt with tonight, and from what one of my friends heard, you're the one that might help us out."

"You see," he continued, "I live with a community of squatters not far from here. For the past five months, members of our community have been disappearing for days at a time, only to turn up later, their bodies completely drained of blood and any trace of life, with the telltale twin holes in their necks. We've been living in fear, worried about which one of us will be next."

I nodded, letting him continue.

"One of my friends saw your face on the news," he said. "Something about your family, how a vampire did it, and how the Star thinks you fought the bloodsucker off."

Damn. So much for anonymity.

"Please, if you can fight off a vampire like that, surely you can rid us of this vampire that's plaguing us! We can't live like this any longer!"

"Wait a minute," I said, standing up and backing away. "How do I know this isn't some sort of set-up to collect a reward? How much is the Star paying to capture me?"

"Capture you?" the ork asked, confused. "Hell, they wanna give you a medal! The report said they're treating the killing of the vampire as self-defense, that they just want to bring you in to find out what happened."

"Oh," I replied. "Alright then, that's good news. But…what makes you think I can deal with this guy?"

"You killed a vampire using…what? A fork?" he asked.

"Kitchen knife, actually," I corrected.

"Fine, a kitchen knife," he replied. "My point is, if you can do that, then I have no doubt that you'll be more than able to handle this guy, especially since you won't be going in unarmed."

"Huh?" I asked.

The ork took something out of his pants pocket. Something large, wrapped in cloth. He leaned in close so that no one could accidentally see what it was and unwrapped it.

It was a gun.

"One of my fellow squatters took this off a particularly sadistic ganger who thought terrorizing the unfortunate was cool," he said. "It's a Glock 21 – antique, but damn powerful. .45 caliber bullets; y'know how powerful those are?"

Not offhand I didn't, but from the video games I'd played, I'd guessed they were pretty damn good. I nodded.

"Good. Ever handled one?"

"Only in FPS games."

He groaned in disappointment.

"I guess that'll have to be good enough," he said, handing me the gun. "It's got 13 shots; don't waste them."

"From what we've been able to figure out, the bloodsucker lives in an abandoned building not far from here. It's got an old sign on it; 'Green Creek Apartments,' something like that. Now hurry! We cannot tolerate this one more night!"

A bit stunned at the whole situation, I walked away from the ork and eventually into the bathroom near the back of the church.

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I sat in a bathroom stall for the next hour, trying to figure out what to do. I was being sent on a mission by some squatters, being asked to risk my life against another vampire so that they could live in peace.

I didn't know what to do. Even with my powers under some measure of refinement, I was worried that my kill of the vampire that broke into my house was dumb luck, that I might not be so lucky with this one.

On the other hand, I couldn't let these people down. We were in the same situation, and I had a source of power that let me stand a better chance against this thing than they could.

I got up from the toilet seat and went over to the bathroom mirror and looked into it. I never realized how hardened my face looked until now. I wasn't the high school student and video game nut that I was a month ago. I was someone who had seen his entire family murdered and had been reduced to living in a church-turned-soup kitchen/shelter. I had been through more in a month than I ever had in my life.

I couldn't go back to my old life. I'd already gone beyond the point of no return. From now on, I was someone else.

This would be the first step of that new life.

I was going to help these people.

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That night, I set out at around 9 p.m. – well after dusk for that time of year – and headed for the building that the squatter mentioned.

The building was only about three blocks away, but in Redmond it might as well have been three miles. I was hoping that the presence of a gun in my hand would be enough to ward off any potential troublemakers, but I was hoping I wouldn't have to actually use it – the thing only had 13 shots, and I didn't want to waste a single one if I was going to kill this vampire.

13 rounds. Considering that these things regenerated – or so I'd heard from Patterson's; the first vamp I'd iced didn't even have a chance to regenerate before I killed him – it wasn't as sure a thing as it sounded.

Somehow, I managed to make it to the building without getting accosted by gangers. Mentally triggering my newfound night vision, I cased the building. Three floors, small apartment complex. I saw a light on in one of the third-floor windows and figured that that was where my prey was.

He was making this way too easy.

Staying on guard, I pushed the front door of the complex open, visually sweeping the room for signs of life.

Nothing. Not even a devil rat.

Feeling the adrenaline pumping through my body, I did a thorough search of the front desk room on the off chance that he might be here – that upstairs light thing seemed too convenient. Still nothing.

My paranoia now at full pitch, I headed for the stairwell and slowly made my way to the third floor. I figured that even if that light was a trap, it was the best place to start looking – assuming the suckhead was home.

I finally arrived at a room with light spilling out of the door cracks – Room 304. This had to be it.

Mulling the best way to get the drop on this guy, I finally settled on the S.W.A.T team approach. I stepped back from the door a bit, then lunged at it, delivering the best kick I could to break it open. The rusted metal lock broke under the force, and I stepped into the room, gun raised.

Still nothing. No vampire. I figured he must have stepped out for his nightly hunt and decided to search the place while he was still gone.

The apartment wasn't too big. There was a single bed off to one side and a trid set on the other side, and a desk with a lit lamp on top of it in front of the window. Other than the trid set, the guy didn't have much in the way of personal effects, though I did notice two certified credsticks on the desk. Running them through the old credchecker on the desk, I found that one had a balance of 5,000 nuyen and one a balance of 2,000 nuyen!

"Why the hell is this guy living in Redmond if he has this sort of cash?" I wondered out loud.

The answer came instantly – plenty of homeless people around equals a perfect food supply for a vampire. No one's gonna miss them, after all.

I was thinking this all over when I heard footsteps coming up the staircase outside the room.

It was him!

Thinking fast, I pocketed the credsticks – he wasn't going to be around long enough to use them anyways – and flattened my back against the wall just to the side of the door frame, gun raised.

"_WHAT THE FUCK!_"

The shocked exclamation I heard from just outside made me crack a smile. He obviously had seen my handiwork and wasn't happy. Good.

Switching to my thermal vision, I prepared for the bastard to rush in pissed off. He did not disappoint, dashing into the room and checking his desk, obviously thinking someone had robbed him. He was right, actually.

His heat signature – or rather, the lack of it – betrayed his true nature. I'd seen human heat signatures before, and this guy's was definitely not human. In fact, it barely even registered.

Switching to normal vision, I pointed my gun at the guy's back.

"Looking for these?" I said, digging the pen-sized credsticks out of my pocket.

He whirled around, an enraged look in his eyes. Blood stained his lips and his teeth, which were gritted in anger. His tattered Seahawks shirt and jeans where also bloodstained.

The fangs, the heat signature and the blood gave me all the confirmation I needed.

"Vampire," I said, pointing the Glock directly at his head.

"Who wants to know?" he shot back.

"The avenger of those squatters you've been killing," I said, the adrenaline pumping through me and making my heart race. "Let's just say, you've got a bounty on your head, and they've called me in."

The vampire backed away, towards the desk. I advanced towards him, tightening my finger on the trigger.

"Go to hell," I growled.

I pulled the trigger, heard the gunshot - but instead of being greeted by the sight of the vampire's head exploding, I found myself knocked on my ass as he ducked under my outstretched arm and shoulder-rammed me.

Damn! This guy was even faster than the vampire I'd killed before!

Rolling backwards and getting back up, I pointed the gun at the vamp and fired twice. The first shot went into his shoulder, but the recoil jerked my arm up so much that the second shot nearly went into the ceiling.

_Crap,_ I mentally cursed to myself._ Remember, video game man – REAL GUNS HAVE RECOIL!_

The vampire staggered back from the shot, but recovered fast as the hole in his shoulder closed almost instantly.

10 shots left.

The vampire let a hellish scream as he charged me again, mouth open and ready to chomp.

Reacting fast, I dove out of the way and fired at him as he passed. The shot tore into his arm, but he kept on going until he went through his door and hit the wall outside.

Getting up, I put myself in a ready position and fired three times. With both hands on the gun, I managed to control the recoil enough to hit him all three times. Nearly half-inch-wide slugs tore through his right shoulder and back, prompting a pained howl.

If the damage he'd already taken was any indication, that wouldn't keep him staggered for long. I needed to hit a vital point.

The head.

I set up to aim and fire again, but before I could pull the trigger, the bloodsucker charged at me, ramming his head into my stomach like a bull. The force of the impact knocked the wind out of me and slid me backwards, crashing against the desk. I slumped to the ground, flat on my back, but I somehow managed to hold on to my gun.

I was too busy concentrating on my throbbing back and stomach to notice the vampire at first, but when I heard him hiss, I snapped back to attention.

The bastard was straddling my chest, his fanged maw open.

"I have to give you credit; I haven't had such a good fight in a long time!" he gloated. "This'll make your blood taste even sweeter!"

Shaking off the shock, I clenched my hand around the gun as tightly as I could and shoved it into his open mouth.

Time seemed to stop in that instant as a look of realization and dread crossed his face, the barrel of the black-painted, polymer-framed gun shoved between his teeth.

Finally, I broke the silence.

"Taste this."

I squeezed the trigger.

This time, I was rewarded with what I had hoped to see.

A huge explosion of blood and gray matter sprayed from the back of the vampire's head as the .45 caliber round did its job, tearing apart the rear half of his skull.

Not wanting to get Infected blood on me, I pushed the dead vamp – at least I _thought_ he was dead – off of me. His maw was frozen in the open position, and his eyes stared off into space.

Deciding not to take any chances, I put the Glock to the front of his skull and fired off one last round, destroying the rest of his head.

Sitting down on the floor, I took some time to cool down from the fight I'd just been through. Once recovered, I picked up the credsticks from where I'd dropped them and walked out of the apartment.

I'd done my job.

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Once I arrived back to the shelter, I headed immediately for the bathroom and used the semi-functional sink to wash the vampire's blood off the gun. I didn't want to risk me or anyone else being infected if they handled it. Yeah, washing most guns in water would seem like a bad idea, but from what I'd heard from a friend of mine, Glocks were durable enough to handle worse.

Taking the cleaned gun, I headed into the main church area and looked for the squatter who hired me. He was still in the pew he'd been sitting in when we'd talked.

Switching the gun's safety on, I dropped it on the pew with an audible clatter. The ork started and looked up.

"It's done," I said. "You'll have no more trouble from him."

The ork smiled and nodded.

"There's still five shots left in it. I have a feeling you'll need the more than I will. Oh, and by the way…"

I pulled out the credstick with 2,000 nuyen on it and tossed it at him.

"Two grand. Found it in the vampire's apartment."

Taking the 5,000 nuyen stick out of my pocket, I pointed to it.

"Five grand here. I'm taking this as hazard pay."

The ork nodded, seeming to understand.

And with that, we parted ways.

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The next day, I left the shelter with the bag I came with and the 5,000 nuyen. With that sort of money, I could finally afford to live somewhere besides Redmond.

A day later, I was holed up in my new apartment back in Renton, my home district. It was a basement apartment, not much to write home about, especially compared to the usual nice places that Renton was home to, but it was bug-free and only cost about a thousand a month – the best combination of cost-effectiveness and modern conveniences likely to be found anywhere in Seattle.

I let out a contented sigh as I sat down on my second-hand couch and switched on the cheap trid set for the first time.

I was back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Story 3: Meeting My (Weapons) Maker**

Most people in the shadow community that know of us – by "us" I mean the hunter community – think that we're all solitary types, lone nuts walking the night. They think that we're all anti-social nutjobs, hunting the creatures of the night because we're too psycho for anything else that might require more human interaction.

Let me clear this up right now – while some lone nuts hunt, the majority of us are social creatures. In fact, most of the social and mood problems some of us have come from the fact that we _want_ social interaction. Unfortunately, our line of work doesn't leave much time for parties or casual bar visits.

This doesn't mean we don't have friends, however. Most hunters I know have friends, usually people that are involved in the hunt in a supporting role. The bonds we form with these people are strong out of necessity – it's the rare average Joe Chummer that can stand a friend that hunts the undead by night.

I'm fortunate to say that I'm one of those hunters that has friends. They're mostly those that help me with the hunt, but like I said, we've got a tight bond.

Let me tell you how I met one of them – the friend that helped me into my current line of work.

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It happened about three months after I first moved into my apartment in Renton. That money I gained from the vampire I'd killed allowed me to get the place, but I soon realized that without a means of getting some cash, I was going to be right back out on the streets again.

It wasn't like I had too many marketable job skills either. Hell, I'd never even had a burger-flipping job.

In short, things were looking bad. I had two months to find a job that could pay my rent, and I had no experience.

The only thing I could think of that I was remotely good at that could make some money was vampire hunting. But without a gun (which, being newly SINless, wouldn't be very easy for me to get), I would have been just another victim. It's not like I had black market connections to get myself a firearm, after all.

I think this is where I'm supposed to spout some cheesy quote about fate and the turns it throws at us and how things get better just when it seems the worst.

Well, forget it. Yeah, I did meet the guy that helped me get into the hunting life, but it wasn't so perfectly executed as to be a twist of fate. It was pure luck – no divine intervention, no twist of fate. Know how I know that?

Because I can't think of any divine plans that would involve the fate-twisted being outnumbered five-to-one against flesh-eating beasts.

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Even though I couldn't get myself a true firearm, I decided to get a practice gun, since I figured Infected hunting was where I was going to end up sooner or later. There were simply no other options for me.

I went down to the army surplus store about a month after moving in and bought myself a CO2-powered air gun. Yeah, it was just a replica and wouldn't harm anything except a sheet of paper, but I figured that I could use it for target practice.

It was a nice gun, actually. It was a metal-framed replica of an Ares Predator, nearly identical except for that damn orange tip on the barrel to distinguish it from the real thing. The funny thing is, even though I knew it wasn't real, I still felt a surge of confidence when I picked it up for the first time. Only cost 100 nuyen, too, which I eagerly plunked down.

I spent the next couple months practicing with my new prize, setting up all sorts of challenging targets for myself – cans, paper bulls-eye targets, the occasional spider crawling on my wall – and daring myself to hit every one of them. I didn't hit them all the first time, but after constant practice – sometimes up to 10 hours a day – I'd managed to build up an impressive amount of accuracy.

For all that accuracy, a couple months later I was still without a real weapon and two months away from street life again. I considered all my options, but I quickly ran out of them. No legal way to get it, and no illegal connections I felt comfortable dealing with.

The night I met my friend, I'd formulated a desperate plan – find a lone ganger in the Redmond Barrens and mug him for his weapon. Yeah, it was stupid, but it was the only choice I had. I was banking on my replica Predator – newly painted to remove that pansy-looking orange barrel tip – to intimidate the ganger enough that he'd fork it over. As some added insurance to protect myself – and hide my gun during my stroll over to Redmond – I bought myself a nice black leather trench coat with Kevlar woven between the leather layers.

I was all decked out with somewhere to go, and I headed out into the mild April night, Predator hidden under my coat, ready to carry out my half-cocked plan.

I'd only been walking for a few minutes when a terrible stench hit my nose. At first, I thought some Renton squatter had just taken a dump in the alleyway, but I soon realized that this smelled a whole lot worse. Like…rot. Rotting flesh. Don't ask me how I knew what that smelled like, 'cause I'm still not sure myself.

I also noticed that the further I walked in the direction of Redmond, the stronger the smell was getting. I silently thanked my lucky stars that one of my powers granted to me hadn't been a sharper sense of smell and continued onwards.

Then I heard it.

"HELP!"

It was a man's voice, and it sounded very distressed – an assumption punctuated by the sound of a shotgun blast quickly following the cry.

The sound didn't seem too far away, and I couldn't just ignore somebody in danger. I ran in the direction of the sound. As I feared, the smell just kept getting stronger, along with the man's subsequent cries for help.

After about a minute of running, I saw a bunch of people crowded in front of a small building, one that looked like a business of some sort. Another cry for help and several shotgun blasts, one of which sent one of the mob members flying backwards, confirmed that that was the building where the trouble was, and that the man in trouble was inside the building.

"HEY!" I called out to the crowd. "Leave him alone!"

The rear-most person in the crowd turned towards me, and what I saw nearly struck me dead with fright.

His eyes were white and milky, his skin gray as smoke, and his head completely barren of any hair. He had the same rank odor coming from him that I'd smelled further back. His clothes were in tatters, and his fingers ended in horrific, sharp nails that were long enough to be claws.

It was a ghoul.

"Welcome to our dinner party, meat!" he shouted at me, baring terrifying piranha-like teeth.

_Our_ party. Great. That _entire crowd_ was made of ghouls!

I mentally cursed myself for not even suspecting the possibility that the horrible stench could have been ghouls. They're _flesh eaters_, for Ghost's sake! And I called myself an aspiring Infected hunter!

Sharp movement in my field of vision shook me out of my self-loathing, and I dodged to the side just in time to avoid the ghoul's bull charge. I gave the monster a swift axe kick to his spine – a trick I'd seen in some martial arts movies – and heard a satisfying crack as he crumpled to the ground.

I tried to run for the storefront, only to feel a hellacious pain in my groin.

"SHIT!" I cried out.

I must've pulled a muscle doing that axe kick of mine. I cursed myself again for being so stupid. That attack may have taken the one ghoul down, but there were at least ten more left, and the cannibalistic crowd had heard my pained cry and was turning its attention towards me.

Hoping to look intimidating enough to ward them off, I pulled my replica pistol and pointed it at them.

"Stay back!" I commanded. "Don't come any closer!"

No effect. They kept walking towards me, almost as though they were shambling. Since they certainly could have moved faster, I had to assume that they were trying to scare the shit out of me before they killed me.

Sadistic bastiches.

"HEY!"

I turned towards the storefront. It was the guy that was crying for help earlier. He was an old man, at least in his late 50s, and he looked Asian. He was also waving a gun above his head.

"Put that pea shooter away! Take this!"

With a huge overhead throw, he hurled the gun towards me, high above the dead-looking crowd.

Tossing my replica aside, I caught the thrown pistol with a perfect catch and immediately switched the safety off. I leveled the gun at the closest ghoul, an act that caused the entire crowd to pause for a second.

I didn't waste that second with a cocky remark. I just pulled the trigger.

The bastard's head exploded not two meters away from me, his blood and brains flying backwards and splattering some of the crowd.

Another gunshot rang out a few meters away and I saw another ghoul at the rear of the crowd go down. The old man must have gotten back to business.

I grinned as I realized that we could win this thing, and I popped two more flesh-eaters, their hearts pierced by .45 caliber lead.

"Hang on over there!" I yelled to the old man.

I broke and ran for the storefront, ignoring the twinges of pain shooting through my groin. I shot another ghoul on the way over, but I only winged him and pissed him off. He stared at me with a murderous glare and leaped towards me, but two more shots to his head cancelled his flight about halfway to its destination.

Finally arriving at the storefront door, I was greeted by an open door that quickly slammed shut once I was inside. The mob outside was quickly advancing towards the narrow opening.

"Back up!" I heard as I was pushed backwards.

"Here, take these," he said, pressing a couple extra clips into my hand. "And get ready!"

I looked towards him ready to thank him, but he already had his shotgun trained on the opening, his eyes tensely focused on the crowd of pack animals outside. He clearly wasn't in the mood for conversation. Couldn't really blame him.

Fumbling around with the clips, I ejected the partially spent one and replaced it with a fresh one. There wasn't going to be any time to reload once the shooting started. I placed the half-empty one in my back pocket, mentally marking it as the last one.

The gun's digital readout read 13. One chambered, twelve in the mag.

Hoping that 13 shots would be enough, I pointed the gun towards the glass window of the wooden door. I tensed my finger on the trigger, causing the gun to project a red dot from its underbarrel laser sight on one of the many smoke-gray faces staring at us through the glass.

"How many shots you got in that thing?" I asked the old man.

"Eight," he replied.

"21 shots between us," I said. "Think that'll be enough?"

"It will have to be," he replied.

That didn't sound good.

"Listen to me," he said. "On the count of three, I'm going to kick the door open. Once I do, start shooting and don't stop till every one of them is dead. Make every shot count."

I nodded in acknowledgement.

Holding the pistol steady, I watched as the brave old guy stepped towards the door, shotgun ready.

"One…two…THREE!"

He delivered a swift kick to the door, shattering the wood around the lock and throwing it open. The mass of swinging wood knocked the gathering ghouls off balance, and the old man took advantage of the confusion to blow the head off one of the ghouls.

I followed his lead, firing my gun at another ghoul and making a nice big crater through his face.

Seconds later, the ghouls were all dead. Twelve corpses littered the street in front of the store, their newly begun decay adding to the already horrid smell of their bodies. We shot any corpses with their heads still attached through the head, just to make sure they were down.

I looked up from where I'd shot the last dead ghoul at the old man I'd just met and strolled towards him, carefully stepping over the diseased corpses.

"Looks like I owe you one, man," I said. "Without that tossed gun, I'd be dead meat, literally. Maybe even one of them."

The man looked up at me, a grave look on his face.

"We're not out of the woods yet," he said in a tired and heavily accented voice. "Lone Star will be here soon, and they'll doubtlessly be asking questions. A massive shootout doesn't really go unnoticed in Renton, you know. I'll do the talking; you just go inside until it's over. I'll meet you back in there soon."

I nodded in agreement and headed back into the shop just as the sirens of Lone Star squad cars started blaring.

Taking a look around the store, I realized for the first time what this store the old man was protecting was. It was a gun shop. There were hunting rifles, pistols, even assault rifles, all up for sale in this place.

You couldn't ask for a better place to make a stand.

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I spent a good 15 minutes ogling the gun collection before the old man walked back in, looking to be in a considerably better mood.

"Well, they're carting off the corpses now," he said. "They're writing this off as a case of self-defense; the gang symbol patch on their clothes was reason enough."

"A gang?" I replied. "That mob that just attacked us was a gang?"

"Yes," the old man said, nodding. "The Hannibals, they call themselves. Some reference to an old horror movie, I'm told. They're trying to muscle in on this area, and many of the storefront owners are so afraid of them because they're all ghouls that they just pay the protection fee."

Damn. The Infected were getting organized? No one said the hunting profession was a safe job, but this put a whole new twist on things.

"Anyways, the cops weren't too sad to see members of a violent gang put down," he continued. "Combined with my account of what happened, that was enough for them."

I let out a relieved sigh.

"Please allow me to introduce myself," he said, bowing. "My name is Toshiro Yamato, and I own this store."

I bowed in return. "Jonathan," I said, not including my last name. "I'm just a guy with a hatred for the Infected that just grew a mile skyward."

Toshiro nodded understandingly.

"Shall we continue this elsewhere?" he asked. "There's a steakhouse nearby."

I nodded, and we headed out for a midnight dinner.

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We spent a good hour talking at the steakhouse over a plate full of meat that tasted like it was cooked with a military flamethrower. Still, he was buying, so I couldn't really complain.

We sat quietly for a good few minutes before he realized that I wasn't going to tell him anything without a bit of give-and-take, information wise. So he started talking about his store, how long he'd been in business and stuff like that. In return, I told him about the past few months – my family, the destruction of two vampires and those ghouls outside his store, and how the only thing I had left to live for was hunting these monsters.

Clearly, he hadn't been expecting the tale I'd told him. He just started at me, like he didn't know how to reply.

"Look, I didn't mean to dump my whole sob story on you," I said, breaking the awkward silence. "I guess I just got a bit carried away and…"

"No, no, don't apologize," he said. "It's just…I've never heard a story like that before. It's terrible."

"Yeah," I said. "I don't know how common it is in Seattle, but…the statistics don't mean much when you or your family is the victim."

"Indeed," he said. "Well, as both of us know, there's already one gang of flesh-eating monsters in this district; there's got to be at least a few more monsters in other districts, and who knows how many there could be in Redmond and Puyallup, where the police never go?"

That made sense. Anyone who didn't want to be found could just hide out in the Barrens and just let the rest of society forget about them. Until they started wreaking havoc in a "nice" neighborhood, that is. That was the only time the police ever seemed to care about anyone in the blighted districts of Seattle.

"So what now?" I asked. "The Hannibals aren't just going to let the deaths of a dozen of their number go easily."

"Indeed," Toshiro replied. "And who knows how many more there are left in the gang? They might all come after us next time."

"I was wondering," I asked. "Why did they come after you? What made them brazen enough to attack in the open in a district as well-patrolled as Renton?"

"I refused to be cowed by them any longer," he said. "I stood up to their efforts to extort money out of my business, and that attack was their way of saying that they intended to take it by force."

"Maybe we could take them out," I whispered.

He started, sitting up straight.

"Take them out!" he whispered harshly. "Are you insane! Did you not hear me saying that there could be scores more ghouls at their hideout?"

"Better to die on your feet than live on your knees," I replied. "And you must think that way too, or else you wouldn't have stood up to them in the first place."

He crossed his arms and sighed, staring at the ceiling.

"Besides, they're going to attack your store again anyways, and this time it'll be for your head, not just your money," I pointed out. "If we go after them first, make a bit of a pre-emptive strike, we might have the element of surprise."

"It will take more than surprise to succeed against them," he replied, shaking his head. "We'll need more firepower than you and I combined can provide."

"Know anyone that can help?" I asked.

Once again, he crossed his arms, sighed, and stared at the ceiling. He seemed to be thinking.

"I'm not sure I should be telling you this, seeing as I just met you," he said, his tone somewhat sharp.

"However…you did save my life, and I suppose that's worth some measure of trust," he said. "And since you have said yourself that you're a hunter of the Infected, or at least trying to be, I suppose that means you run in much the same circles."

I flashed a puzzled expression, not understanding what he meant.

He leaned in a bit closer, whispering so that I had to lean in to hear him.

"I also provide my goods to shadowrunners," he said. "You know what I mean, _so ka_?"

I nodded. I understood his concerns about trust – shadowrunning was certainly not a legitimate business, and his reputation and legal status could be in serious trouble if that information found its way to certain people.

"Anyways, due to these customers," he continued, pulling his head back so as not to attract attention, "I have contacts in the community. I could pull some people together. They might be able to help us."

"Sounds good," I said. "How soon can they be called to service?"

"Let's find out," he said, getting up to leave. "Come back to my store and I'll make a few calls."

I sat up from our booth and followed him out, heading back to the still-stinking gun store.

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Two hours later, Toshiro and I had a plan. Thanks to his connections in the shadow community, we now had two runners willing to help us clean the Hannibals out from their hideout. Unfortunately, they were busy with "other matters" (I didn't bother asking what that meant) and wouldn't be available for another day.

A day in which the Hannibals could attack the store again.

I was sitting in a chair in Hannibal's gun store, thinking about anything that we could do in the meantime to prepare for the attack – ours' or the Hannibals', whichever came first. I had a feeling that we'd gotten lucky in our victory over the ghouls; from what I'd read in Patterson's, they were usually tougher than that.

Whatever the case, I had a feeling that the ghouls wouldn't make the same mistake again if they attacked. They would send their strongest this time, and the battle would not be so easily won.

"Hey," Toshiro said, rousing me from my thoughts. "You should really go home and get some sleep."

I shook my head. "I've gotta prepare. This is going to be a tough fight, and if those bastards attack us…"

The old Japanese guy shook his head in return.

"They won't attack again, not immediately anyways," he said. "And the best way you can prepare is to be rested. Go home. Come back here by noon tomorrow; I live right above this place, so I'll be here long before then. Know how to use an assault rifle?"

I shook my head.

"Then prepare for a crash course tomorrow. Remember: noon, sharp."

Well, this was his house. I got up to leave.

"Noon. I'll be here."

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The next day, after a few hours of a sleep and an overnight heating pad treatment for my groin injury, I came by the gun store, carrying a McHugh's bag and ready to go through a good few hours of firearms training. I was half-dreading arriving to a store with smashed windows and Toshiro's dead body, but everything was intact when I came by.

Toshiro was dealing with a couple of customers when I arrived, so I just sat down for a few minutes and waited until he was done. He looked up at me once the customers left.

"Hey there," he said, smiling. "Brought some lunch, I see?"

"Yep," I replied. "So…where's the targeting range?"

"Right this way," he said, waving me into the back room and telling another employee to cover for a few minutes.

I walked into the back room, but it looked like a typical warehouse – no bull's eye targets set up, no weapons except those packaged in boxes, nothing.

"Ok…what's the deal here?" I asked, confused.

The old man tugged at a chain on the floor. A trapdoor wide enough to fit a troll through hinged open at his pull, and a small staircase led down into what looked like a basement.

"Down here," he said.

I hesitated for a bit. Trapdoors leading underground tended to be how some bad horror sims started.

He must have seen the concern in my face, because he looked a bit surprised at first, but that soon changed to understanding.

"If it makes you feel better, I'll go first," he said.

I nodded, and he started down the stairs.

Cautiously following him down, I took a look around.

This whole basement was set up like another gun shop. Workbenches lay all around, with partially constructed guns of all types laying on them, along with a bunch of power tools. There was even a miniature firing range set up on the left side, running the entire length of that side of the basement.

"Damn, nice setup here," I said.

Toshiro laughed as he closed the trapdoor.

"You didn't think I did my shadow work up there, did you?" he asked.

"Guess not," I replied, feeling a bit dumb for not thinking of that earlier. "So judging by all these disassembled guns, I'm guessing you do custom work as well?"

He nodded. "Been crafting guns for people for ten years, ever since I bought this place. Gotten a lot of positive feedback too."

"Nice," I said.

He waved me over to the firing range and handed me an AK-97. There was a silhouette of a humanoid shape at the other end. That only amounted to about 30 meters, but it was better than nothing.

"This is the most basic type of assault rifle I can think of. If you can handle this, you can probably handle just about anything," he said, walking over to a tool bench. "If one target gets too shot up, there's plenty more lying around. The wall behind the target's made of Kevlar, so don't worry too much about damaging it."

Toshiro walked back over with a cigar-shaped object that he immediately screwed onto the barrel of the rifle.

"Suppressor. That'll keep the customers from hearing all the gunfire. Just remember to change it every 300 rounds; there's several more lying over there," he said, pointed to the bench he just came back from.

"Well, that's about it," he said, walking towards the staircase. "Need any help, just push the door open, come back up and get me. The runners will be here around midnight, so you've got plenty of time."

I nodded.

"Good luck," he said, going up and closing the trapdoor, leaving me with a rifle and a target to shoot at.

I spent a good half hour just learning how to load and ready the thing – I'd never used an assault rifle before, so it was a new experience. Once that was done, I just kept firing. Empty the clip, change the clip, and fire.

I kept aiming for the head and the heart on the paper targets – fatal shots on a living target. Before long, I had managed to refine my aim enough to hit those targets even on full-auto fire, though I still only managed to hit the two fatal targets about 30 of the time, at best, on continuous fire. Still, some chaotic spraying fire might just be called for on a mission like this, so I trained myself in firing that way as well.

Before long, it was midnight, and Toshiro had come downstairs to get me. He looked at the used paper targets I'd laid out on another workbench, the head and chest areas perforated, with some stray bullet holes spread out throughout the rest of the targets.

"I see you've been busy," he said. "Looks like some nice progress for twelve hours."

"Managed to do pretty well on burst-fire, less so on full-auto," I said. "Kicked ass on semi-auto, though."

"Well, in my experience full-auto is best for heated mission," he said.

"'In my experience?'" I asked. "So you've been in combat before?"

He nodded. "Ran the shadows for twenty years before retiring to this place. Took a lot of jobs – corporate mostly. I refused to touch organized crime."

"So that's how you made those shadow connections for the mission," I said.

"Yep," he replied.

"Are you gonna be alright if you come with us on this?" I asked him.

Toshiro looked at me, and I knew I'd made a mistake asking that.

"You mean, 'Is my old age going to get in the way?'" he said accusingly.

"Well…"

"Jonathan, I might be pushing 60, but I've still got the dead eye aim that made me a good shadowrunner," he said, hands on his hips. "And I can still empty a clip from a pistol pretty damn fast."

"Wires?" I asked.

He nodded. "Smartlink too. So don't worry about me, I can handle myself."

"Hey, I'm sorry, I just thought…"

"Don't worry," he said with a grin. "The 'slow, old man' image is something I've used to my advantage a few times in the past few years. It's fooled a lot of people, so you're not the first. I figured it might work to our advantage against these man-eating punks tonight."

I saw what he meant. The element of surprise might be on our side if those ghouls thought he was a helpless old guy.

"So if you start walking with a limp…?"

He nodded. "It's an act. But it'd help if you and the others played along with it."

"Speaking of the others, are they here yet?" I asked.

"They're waiting for us upstairs. But first, you need to get suited up for battle."

He walked over to one of the boxes and pulled several of them over to a workbench, unloading a few items from each.

He plunked an assault rifle from one of the boxes down on the bench.

"Heckler & Koch G12A3z. 32-round clip, laser sight, and a gas vent system in the barrel to stabilize the weapon during fire. I'll attach a sling to it for easy carrying."

"Nice," I said. "But don't you have anything with better recoil compensating? Y'know, just in case I need to lay down some serious firepower?"

"No time," he said, attaching the sling. "Attaching those components takes a bit of work, and we're set to roll right now."

He pulled a large pistol out of another box. Even before he said what it was, I knew I was gonna like it.

"Colt Manhunter," he said. "Integral laser sight and attached silencer so the neighbors won't wake up. Got a holster for it too, along with a few more clips for both weapons."

Turning to a third box, he yanked out a jacket that looked big enough to be a winter coat.

"Armor jacket – excellent protection for low weight. Got some pockets to hold the extra clips too."

I started picking up my equipment, figuring he was done, but instead he turned to a longer cardboard box and pulled something out I didn't expect to see – a sword. More specifically, a Japanese katana.

"Finally, something I've always found useful on shadowruns – a melee weapon," he said. "Never runs out of ammo, and just as useful as a gun."

"I appreciate the thought," I said, "but if we have to get into hand-to-hand combat with these guys, it's probably over. Either we're dead, or we'll be one of them."

"Maybe," he said, "but it's saved my life more than once. Take it with, just in case."

I shrugged and clasped the sheathed katana. It couldn't hurt.

"Well, let's meet our allies," Toshiro said, picking up a rifle, pistol and armor jacket before walking up the stairs.

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Taking stock of our allies that were waiting in the back-room warehouse area, I felt a bit more confident of our ability to take down the warehouse of ghouls.

"Jonathan, meet Fenrir," Toshiro said, pointing to a giant – as in the troll metavariant – standing on the left. The guy was _huge_, and looked like he was armed for war – not only was he wearing military-style armor, he was hefting what looked like a full-out machine gun attached to some sort of harness he was wearing (I later found out this was a gyro-mount). The guy also had his entire left arm replaced by a cybernetic limb. Quite a menacing figure, though I doubted fear would be effective against a bunch of creatures that were already ugly as sin.

"And this is Hecate, a mage" Toshiro said, pointing to a human woman to the right of Fenrir. She was decked out in all black, topped off with a trench coat that I suspected was armored. I didn't doubt she had at least one gun concealed under it, in addition to the magical firepower she wielded.

"So…are we ready?" I asked, eager to get started.

"Almost," Hecate said. "You need a code name."

"A…code name?" I asked, somewhat in disbelief.

"Yeah," Fenrir said. "What, you gonna use your real name? Every runner needs a code name."

"Yeah, but pick one fast, 'cause we gotta go," Toshiro said. "Mine's going to be Link, the name I've had in the shadow community ever since my first one."

I'd never thought about this. It didn't occur to me that a code name might help – and just plain sound cool.

It only took a few seconds of thinking before it came to me. I was a vampire hunter now, and what did the vampires of legend fear more than anything?

Sunlight.

I smiled as it came to mind.

"Call me Helios," I said.

"The Greek sun god," Hecate noted. "Fitting choice for a vampire hunter."

"Alright, let's do this," Link said. "I've got a van out back that'll fit Fenrir and Helios; Hecate will ride in the front with me and do some astral scouting before we arrive."

"Let's go."

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About a half hour later, Hecate had completed her astral recon of the warehouse where the Hannibals were holed up and given a rather unsettling report.

"I count 20 ghouls in the warehouse," she said over the earplug communicators we all had. "It's a pretty simple layout – giant lower floor with lots of boxes for them to hide behind, a few staircases leading to an upper catwalk, and a second-level office where the leader is holed up. There's several doors leading to a loading dock on the lower floor; it looks like that's been made over into a barracks."

"20 ghouls, and lots of places for them to hide," I said. "Who thinks this could get messy?"

"Well, three of us have night vision," Fenrir noted. "And Hecate has astral sight; that should help immensely."

"Yeah, but they've got astral sight too," Hecate noted. "And it's on all the time for them."

"Okay, so how are we going to approach this?" I asked. "If they've got astral sight, then my stealth abilities won't be too effective."

"Let me take the lead," Fenrir piped up. "I'll lay down suppressive fire, and you guys bust in and take care of any of them that I don't."

"Sounds good," Link said. "Just be careful not to hit any of us."

"Gotcha," Fenrir said.

"Let's do it then," I said, pushing open the rear door and letting Fenrir jump out first.

I followed up behind the giant, standing to the side of the warehouse's large door. Hecate stood behind me while Link stood to the other side of the door.

"One, two, three!"

Fenrir kicked the giant door down precisely on "three," following it up with the deafening "chop chop chop" sound of machine gun fire as he sprayed the entire warehouse. Two ghouls unlucky enough to be in the giant's line of sight were chopped in half by the concentrated fire, and another sprawled to the ground, his right arm sliced off at the elbow.

Un-slinging my assault rifle, I took the stairs up two at a time, setting my rifle to burst-fire and firing at a ghoul that was already moving to attack on the catwalk. Three holes appeared in the monster's chest, but he still kept on coming!

Cursing the bastard's strength, I pulled the trigger again. This time, all three went into its neck, causing a wet, gurgling sound to register from his throat. He fell over the catwalk railing and plunged to the ground, his skull cracking open on impact.

I looked down to check on my teammates. They were doing ok for themselves. Fenrir was still spraying the room and had turned several more ghouls into sieves, and Link was using his dead eye aim to decapitate those that Fenrir missed. Meanwhile, Hecate was tossing bolts of pure magical power at one ghoul at a time downstairs. All in all, a successful run so far.

Just as I thought that, I heard a gunshot ring out and felt something hit me in my chest, impacting against my armor. I stumbled back from the hit, but kept my balance on the catwalk.

_Damn_, I thought. _They must've recovered from the surprise and gathered their weapons._

Switching to my thermo vision, I checked around for ghoul heat signatures, and was greeted by swarms of them below me, advancing on the rest of the team. I also spotted at least three on the same catwalk I was on, and they all had guns.

Thinking fast, I brought up the rifle and squeezed the trigger twice. I heard several wet "thuds" as the bullets hit their marks, but they were all still standing – and raising their guns at me.

I pressed the trigger as fast as I could. Three, six, then nine bullets leapt from my gun and streaked towards the flesh-eaters. One trio cratered the face of a ghoul and sent him flipping backwards into the wall, and the others clipped a second one enough that he lost his balance and flipped over the railing.

The third one, unhurt by the flying lead, fired at me. The bullet hit me in the upper right arm with such power that I spun around in mid-air like a top, falling to the catwalk. I had to hang onto the railing to keep from rolling off and falling.

Grimacing at the pain slicing through my arm, I looked up and saw the ghoul running towards me, gun drawn and ready for a second shot.

Trying my best to ignore the intense pain, I raised my rifle and shot, emptying the rest of the clip into the neck and head of the charging creature and sending him flying backwards, his face a smoking hole.

Silently praying I wouldn't get any ghoul blood into the wound, I pulled a couple of large airtight bandages I'd had the foresight to bring along out of my pocket and slapped them on the bullet holes – both the entrance and exit wounds.

I knew those things would come in handy.

Switching out the clip in my rifle, I strolled to the end of the catwalk – and felt a tingle in the back of my neck. Not from cold or anything – it was more like those things psychics claim they feel in sudden emergencies.

I swung my head around a split second before I heard Hecate scream.

"HELIOS, WATCH OUT!"

A ghoul was almost on top of me, his piranha teeth glinting in the dim light of the warehouse.

Time seemed to move in slow motion as I raised my leg and kicked the bastard back before he could lay a single skin cell on me. He flew backward and hit the catwalk with a loud _clang_, followed by three bursts from my rifle that put him down for good.

I didn't realize it until the action cooled down later, but that was yet another power that I had gained from my Awakening – a sixth sense for immediate threats.

Taking a few deep breaths from the scare that I'd just received, I walked up to the office door and kicked it open, poking my rifle through the entrance.

Peeking through the door, I saw the monster I was expecting to see – a ghoul, larger than any I'd ever seen before, and the added mass was all muscle. I knew he had to be the leader; one thing I learned from my month in the Barrens was that gangs were led by the strongest.

The ghoul didn't even flinch at my presence, or the rifle pointed at him. He just smiled and strolled towards me threateningly, obviously counting on intimidating me.

I could only imagine how sorely disappointed he must have felt as I set the rifle on full auto and fired at him, dropping him right then and there. At this range, I wasn't too worried about missing due to recoil.

I _was_ worried, however, when he picked himself up off the floor and kept on walking towards me, raising one claw to strike me.

Thinking fast, I jumped backwards, landing on the catwalk outside just out of his swiping range.

Fumbling with the clips in my pocket, I tried to switch out my empty rifle magazine, but the ghoul lunged forward and swiped again, forcing me to jump backwards to avoid him.

It was all I could do to keep my balance on the catwalk, and the rifle's sling wasn't enough to keep it from being thrown off me by my sudden movement. A loud crash resounded below as the expensive weapon hit the ground floor.

"Shit," I groaned as I faced the ghoul.

The beast just stood there, grinning at me as if daring me to make a move. I wanted to spit at the bastard for being so cocky.

Unfortunately, he also had me right where he wanted me. Any movement I made to draw a weapon would be a split second he'd have to claw me, and then it'd be all over.

He must've gotten tired of waiting at that point, because he lunged at me again, shaking the entire catwalk with his thunderous footsteps. This time, he waited until he was almost on top of me before raising both his claws in a haymaker motion, ready to plunge both sets down on my head.

Instinctively, I jumped backward as far as I could, managing to clear out of range of his claws. As I did, an idea flashed into my mind.

_I'll only get one shot at this._

As he raised his claws up from the ground, I leapt forward and drew my katana from my back sheath, drawing it across my chest as I started my slashing motion.

A look of horror on the massive ghoul's face told me all I needed to know – this would work.

I couldn't help but grin.

It was the last thing he ever saw.

I slashed horizontally, slicing cleanly through the ghoul's neck and then jumping back before any blood could spray on me.

Two seconds later, the monster's head slid cleanly off his torso, leaving a fountain of blood spraying from his neck before the body fell backwards.

It may sound crazy, but the only thing I could think of doing at that time was to find a mirror, to make sure no blood sprayed onto me. I didn't want to take any chances of becoming one of those inhuman animals.

The sounds of gunfire had died down by the time I'd finished my business on the catwalk, so I ran over to my teammates. I was so worried about the possibility of becoming a ghoul that I didn't even notice Hecate's leg wound or the bullet hole in Fenrir's shoulder at first.

"Guys! Do I have _any_ ghoul blood on me? Answer me!"

"Hey hey, calm down," Fenrir said. "Let me take a look.

After looking me over for a few seconds, the giant backed up.

"Doesn't look like it, and I've got some decent optical magnification on these eyes," he said. "If there were any on you, I'd have seen it. You got lucky, considering that sword trick you pulled."

I let out a sigh of relief at that.

"I just did some astral scouting," Hecate said. "No signs of any more ghouls. I'd say they're all dead. So what now?"

"Let's search the place," I said. "They've been shaking down businesses for protection money, they've gotta have a huge stash somewhere. Enough to make this whole thing worthwhile, at any rate."

"I agree," Fenrir said. "Let's get that money for this…and some sterilizing tools to use on the credsticks, just in case."

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While cleaning out the warehouse, we found that the Hannibals had been quite productive. They'd been collecting protection money for only about six months, to hear it told, and yet they had a stash of over 40,000 nuyen stored in their hideout. Chalk that up to their fear factor, I guess.

After a few hours of sterilizing the credsticks of ghoul skin cells and blood – thanks to Hecate's ever so useful Sterilize spell – we'd made enough cash to make our trouble and wounds worthwhile. We split it evenly, so Link more than recouped his losses from when he was shaken down earlier, and I managed to get more than enough for a few months' rent.

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After we split the money and took a few hours for Hecate to heal our wounds, we all went back to Link's gun store and unwound over a few drinks. We were all pretty hyped up on adrenaline for a good long time after the fight, so we needed some cool-down time. Facing death will do that, I suppose.

After the other two left, I was ready to leave and get some well-deserved sleep, but Link stopped me.

"You did good out there," he said. "You handled yourself well, you stayed alive, and you were all business. Those are qualities I've seen in every good shadowrunner. I think you have what it takes to be a hunter, if you're still set on that."

"I am," I replied.

"If you're going to be a hunter, you'll need a source of weapons," he said. "Given that I've already got connections in the shadow community, I think I could help you out."

"You'd do that?" I asked, very surprised.

"I've seen firsthand just how dangerous the Infected are in recent months," he said. "If I can help someone do something about it, I would be wrong not to."

I was elated. I couldn't believe that I was actually going to be getting the support I needed to become a hunter.

"Thank you so much, Yamato-_san_," I said, smiling and shaking his hand. "I accept your offer."

The old man smiled back. "Glad to help," he said.

"Well, I guess the first purchase I'd like to make is that Manhunter you lent me for the mission," I said, handing him one of the credsticks taken from the ghoul hideout. "I didn't have the opportunity to use it, but I think I like it anyways. And then, if you can, I'd like to order a few other things…"

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A couple weeks later, I had the first tools gained for my hunting career. Namely, my "hunting suit," made of a layer of form-fitting, full-coverage body armor and an armor jacket, both modified to make them fire-retardant and non-porous. I was especially happy for the latter, since I was so paranoid about the ghoul blood on the last mission; the sealing was more than enough to prevent accidental exposure from occurring.

As an added precaution against exposure, I also had Link order me a fog-resistant, strap-on face shield, sort of like you see on some hockey helmets, to completely cover my face. It wouldn't be enough to stand up to bullets, but that wasn't my reason for getting it anyways.

When all was said and done, between my armor and Manhunter, I was out 8,500 out of the 10,000 I'd made on the anti-ghoul run. Only enough for another month of rent.

But I'd gained something far more valuable: the means to start hunting and making money, and a comrade in the hunt.

And a freakin' cool nickname, of course.


End file.
